Sketchfab 3D Models

I'm editing my first book and really wanna get it published, but I know nothing about the literary world. I'd like to find an agent who can best represent my interests, because my biggest fear with my work is it getting stolen or losing creative control. Any advice on how I can find an agent?

There’s a couple different ways to find an agent. You can Google for literary agents, go to conferences, or find them on social media. Many agents are extremely active on Twitter, so check out the tags #pitmad, Please note there are some rules around #pitmad so be sure to read up on those.

There are a few general rules:

Do your research. Read the blurbs on the website to see what genres they want, or follow them on social media to see what they’re looking for. Some may say they want specific types of stories. Make note of that. Ultimately, do not send your sci-fi thriller to an agent who wants romance or non-fiction.

Follow the damn rules. Read their submission/query letter requirements very carefully. There may be particular instructions they want you to follow and a quick way to have your material NOT read is to ignore them.

Apply to several. Keep a spreadsheet with names, emails, genres, and when you applied to them. That way you can stay organized and know who you applied to and when.

Do not send them money. Any agent that is asking you for cash up front isn’t a real agent. They will get paid when your story gets picked up for publication.

As for people stealing your work, in the US, you can get copyright. It costs about $75 and requires you to fill in some forms and send in some proof that you’ve actually done the work. The truth is, the likelihood of people stealing your idea and writing the exact same story is low on the literary side.

As for losing creative control, unless you sell the rights to your story (which you wouldn’t do unless you’re selling film rights, and then they can only change the movie not the book), you remain in control. They cannot force you to make changes. With that said, if you refuse to make certain changes, they are well within their rights to drop you as a client.

P.S. For those of you wondering, for TV and Film agents, you (generally) do not find them. They find you.

-Graphei (who’s back from the long hiatus)

Quick and easy way to establish rules in your fantasy/scifi universe!

This can apply both to magic and fictional science, because it’s essentially just a magic system in disguise!

There is a whole spectrum from hard systems (with a very particular set of rules that can’t be broken) to soft systems (characters don’t know everything about the rules and the workings or the rules are flexible). Where on this spectrum your system falls depends on you and your story.

A good way to start out is by asking three questions:

What is possible? What is impossible? What is the price?

Two stupid examples:

Fantasy: With this magic shoes you can fly ten feet above the ground. But you can only fly up, not forward. And your feet will hurt like hell for the next three days after you’ve used them.

Scifi: With this laser gun you can shoot people to stun them. But you can’t kill them with it. And to power it you need to buy a bunch of those little button batteries you never seem to get anywhere.

Try starting with those questions and work from there.

If you want to learn more about building a magic system and scifi/fantasy writing in general, check out these free lectures on youtube by author Brandon Sanderson, I learned a lot!

60 Awesome Search Engines for Serious Writers

Reblog if you agree it's possible to be a big fan of someone without wanting a romantic or sexual relationship with them

yall look at this shit ad*be is tryna pull now on ppl who have outdated software:

(note for context: i’m all for piracy, but in this case my copy of CS6 was downloaded years ago when they were giving it away to students. i got it totally legally.)

guess which frame I gave up on

Can we please take a minute to appreciate how genuinely beautiful the Plance aesthetic is 💙💚

Good stuff.

all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is